Some people never learn.
After an unpredictable, roller-coaster-ride of an NFL season, just about every one of the so-called “experts” is predicting a Super Bowl matchup of … Chicago and San Diego?
Are they crazy? Are these people on something? What in the name of Bill Romanowski is going on here?
See, the Bears and Chargers are the favorites, people, and we all know what that means. It means they’ve got absolutely no shot of making it to Miami. Not this year, anyway.
The regular season was such a unified mess that Dallas may well be playing the New York Jets in February.
The truth is – in this year and just about every year – no one really knows who’s going to emerge from the playoff pack.
“I leave that stuff up to the media, to the so-called experts,” Seattle Seahawks defensive end Bryce Fisher said. “As far as I’m concerned, if they really knew it, they’d be laying their bets down in Vegas and taking whatever the odds are.
“Whichever team plays the best over the next month is going to win it all.”
Yeah, but which team will that be?
The AFC has an obvious favorite in the well-balanced San Diego Chargers.
But the NFC side of the bracket appears wide open, mainly because there’s not a single complete team in the bunch.
Chicago has the NFC’s best record – 13-3 – but the Bears have a serious quarterback controversy. New Orleans is having a magical season, but the Saints have won only one playoff game in franchise history.
Then there are the Seahawks, Cowboys, Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants, all of whom are so unpredictable that nobody knows what to expect from one week to the next.
“The other four of us,” Seahawks offensive lineman Robbie Tobeck said, “we’re just trying to get some momentum.”
Tobeck should know the NFC playoff field as well as anyone, having spent far too many Sundays watching football on television while recovering from an infection in his hip. But even Tobeck doesn’t pretend to have a handle on which team might win it all.
“You guys (in the media) do all the prognosticating: this-team’s-this, and that-team’s-that,” Tobeck said. “Last year, everyone in the press handed Indianapolis the Super Bowl trophy before the end of the season. And it’s all a bunch of crap.”
The good news for both the Seahawks and their fans is that the balance of the NFC leaves room for optimism for every team that’s still alive. Even the struggling Cowboys, whom the Seahawks play host to Saturday at Qwest Field, are feeling pretty good about their chances to emerge from the less-than-impressive pack.
“I think just about any team that is in the playoffs can come out of the NFC,” said Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, who threw eight interceptions during the Cowboys’ 2-3 December. “I think that everyone feels that way. …
“We are the five seed. The situation we are in, you would have a huge uphill battle. But I feel that we are as talented as any team in the NFC, we just haven’t played like it recently.”
Everybody in the NFC feels pretty confident right about now, no matter how bleak things might have looked earlier in the season.
“Football is a funny game,” Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren said. “The ball bounces funny, you get a call here and there, something happens. It’s just like the regular season.
“So I think every team – and every team I’ve ever coached – you go in thinking: ‘Hey, we can do this.’”
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